Precursor Games Cancels Kickstarter, Vows To Return

After raising eyebrows with a self-monitored crowd funding initiative and then launching a parallel Kickstarter, Precursor Games is temporarily pulling the plug on its campaigns for Shadow of the Eternals, a spiritual sequel to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. If you were a backer though, don't fret. The company says it will be back.

In a message on the Kickstarter page, Precursor CEO Paul Caporicci stated that both campaigns would be pulled down later this week.

To our community,

Since we announced this Kickstarter campaign we have seen more support from our community than we had ever hoped for. Along with this support has come a host of a new exciting opportunities that will make the game better than we envisioned. As a result, we have chosen to temporarily take down the Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and our own website on Thursday, June 6.

This doesn’t mean we are going away -- far from it. We’ll be re-launching the Kickstarter in just a few short weeks with a reveal of these exciting new developments.

As we’re closing the current Kickstarter campaign not a single dime from this campaign will be removed from supporters’ accounts and everyone from our website’s crowdfunding campaign will receive full refunds via PayPal. As we re-tool our campaign and continue development, the forums on our site will remain open and active and any interested fans can still join the ‘Order of the Unseen’ to see our progress and join in the fun of creating content for the game themselves.

We want to thank everyone who has participated, volunteered, and spoken up to support us. You are our community and we value you more than you know. Stay tuned and we’ll be back soon!

-- Paul Caporicci + Precursor team

It's not made clear why Precursor is waiting to stop taking pledges, especially since the stated cause of the cancelation is that "exciting new opportunities" have emerged. The project has been under scrutiny because the precursor staff is entirely comprised of former Silicon Knights staff, including Denis Dyack. Following a legal battle with Epic Games, Silicon Knights was found to have infringed Epic's copyright and breached the Unreal Engine 3 licensing agreement. Silicon Knights was then ordered to destroy all unsold copies of Too Human and X-Men Destiny.

Silicon Knights told us that Precursor had purchased some of art assets and equipment, and Precursor informed us that those assets were then converted for use in CryEngine 3.

In the 22 days since the Kickstarter campaign launched, Precursor has only raised just over $127,000 of the $1.35 million goal. The campaign on the company's own site has raised $157,000 of that version's $1.5 million goal. The stated budget for the first of the twelve episodes was $1.5 million, and the Kickstarter goal seems to have been determined based on how much had been pledged on Precursor's site on May 13.

Precursor has promised to return to Kickstarter with a "retooled" campaign in the coming weeks.